Search: “sti”

Be Cool
My streak of good movies ended yesterday after watching Be Cool. Although the movie features a lot of celebrities including John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Vince Vaughn, Cedric the Entertainer, The Rock, Danny DeVito, James Wood and Steven Tyler, the movie was still boring and slow. John Travolta plays the part of a successful movie actor who wants to get out of the movie business and decides to go into the music industry where he ends up getting into trouble with the Russian mafia and a competing music company. The coolest person in the whole movie was surprisingly The Rock who played the role of a gay bodyguard who wants to become a movie actor. I swear if it wasn’t for him I would have turned the movie off after the first 30 minutes.

Ladder 49
The second movie I watched yesterday was Ladder 49 which also starred John Travolta. This movie was a lot better then Be Cool and a lot more exciting. The movie is about a rookie firefighter who joins John Travolta’s fire station and matures to become a seasoned veteran. The firefighter who is played by Joaquin Phoenix gets married, has two kids and then reaches a point where he has to choose between his risky job which he loves or taking a desk job which would make his family a lot happier. The last good firefighting movie I watched was Backdraft but that was ages ago so it was good to watch another one. I usually hate Joaquin Phoenix in movies since he usually plays the role of a dickhead but he was pretty cool in this movie and John Travolta’s acting compared to Be Cool is wayyyyyyyy better. It really doesn’t suite John Travolta being a tough guy, maybe it worked in Pulp Fiction but it wasn’t working in Be Cool. I got a lot more movies still to watch and hopefully I won’t have another Be Cool.

The new NHL season just started after the cancellation of last years season. This time they are back with a new look and a new set of rules. To learn more about the new rules check this link. [Link]

Update: I just realized I haven’t watched Hockey since like 1994. Back then the Toronto Maple Leafs were my favorite team and they had Matt Sundin, Doug Gilmour, Felix Potvin and Dave Andreychuk. Now none of my favorite players are still with the Leafs, sucks.

Yesterday afternoon I watched Green Street Hooligans starring Elijah Wood. The movie is about Elijah getting expelled from Harvard and then moving to England where his sister lives. While there he starts hanging out with his brother-in-laws brother who is a leader of a bunch of hooligans. He starts hanging out with them, learns to fight and becomes part of their gang. The movie is pretty cool and half way through it you just want to turn it off and go out and pick a fight with someone. The problem I found with the movie is Elijah Wood. After watching him in Lord of the Rings as a tiny hobbit, its hard to imagine him as a soccer hooligan, the part doesn’t suit him at all. Still though it was a cool movie I would recommend watching.

I got my CueCat today from Aramex. So far I have been having problems with it. The CueCat works like a keyboard, when I scan a barcode with the CueCat, it types out the barcode number on my mac. The problem I have is that when I scan the number in the organizing software Delicious Library and when I scan a number into TextEdit (like Notepad on Windows) I get 2 completely different numbers where the one in TextEdit is the right one. For example I picked up a random book lying around here, when I scan it into Delicious Library I get the barcode “978908090103408” but when I scan it into TextEdit I get “9780891348382 90000”.

I don’t know whats wrong with Delicious Library, I am going to try and google it now and figure out the issue. Other then that the CueCat is pretty cool, works like a charm. Unlike regular barcode scanners you don’t hold the CueCat from a distance and highlight the barcode, you have to take the CueCat and touch the barcode and then swipe it across. It doesn’t matter if you hold the barcode upside down or vertically it will still scan it right.

Anyway if you are interested in the CueCat it sells for only $9.99 on Amazon. The cheapest barcode scanner you can get.

Update: Ok figured out the problem, or atleast figured out how to get the barcode scanned right. Instead of clicking on “Add a new item” and then scanning, I should just scan right away and it will add it for me. Cool.

Oldboy
I just finished watching two really great movies. The first one is called Oldboy, its a Korean movie that made a big splash at the Cannes Film Festival back in 2004. The movie is available with an English soundtrack but the one I manged to get was Korean with English subtitles. I can’t say much about the movie without ruining the plot but basically a guy gets locked up in a studio apartment for 15 years by some unknown assailants before getting released one day. Once he is out he tries to seek revenge by trying to find out who locked him up and why. Quentin Tarantino loved the movie and thats why it got the extra attention in Cannes.

The Devil’s Rejects
The second movie I watched was called The Devil’s Rejects. This movie reminded me a lot of Natural Born Killers except its way cooler and more violent but they both involved violently sick people who are on the run from the cops. The movie was written and directed by the freaky Rob Zombie and it features A LOT of violence, nudity and general weirdness. If you liked Natural Born Killers you would really like this movie then.

With all this free time now that Ramadan has started I was able to watch a few movies the past two days. I watched Cinderella Man first and I didn’t like it. It was too long and it starts off very sad and doesn’t really turn into a happy movie by the end. Million Dollar Baby was way better. I watched Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy second, I had never read the book but the movie was pretty cool. I mean any movie where earth gets blown up in the first 5 minutes must be cool. The movie was filled with a variety of weird and strange characters so it was very odd and entertaining. Finally I watched Land of the Dead yesterday night. This was fun to watch. Its not as scary as Dawn of the Dead or 28 Days Later but it was interesting none the less and it did play from a different perspective. This is the only zombie movie I have watched where the movie makes you side with the zombies. It’s definetly worth watching.

Yesterday night I downgraded my PSP from version 2.0 to 1.5. The reason I did that was so I could play pirated PSP games and install Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis emulators.

The downgrade was a bit scary, whenever you play with a hardwares firmware you risk fucking it up so that it becomes useless. Luckily my downgrade went smoothly and my PSP is now version 1.5. Games like SOCOM which I received the other day need a software version 1.52 or higher, so I downloaded another software which makes the PSP think its another version, I made it think it was version 2.0 and I can now continue to play SOCOM online.

I ordered a 1GB Sandisk Ultra II memorystick duo from Amazon so I could install the PSP games on. I ordered the Ultra II version since its faster then the regular memorystick and will help when it comes to loading the games faster.

Until the 1GB stick arrives I am using my 128MB memorystick which won’t fit any downloaded pirated PSP games but will fit a ton of emulators and Roms. I installed a Super Nintendo emulator with the following games: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, NBA JAM Tournament Edition, Super Metroid, Super Mario World and Star Wars Empire Strikes Back. They all run very nicely on the PSP and I spent most of my time flipping between Mortal Kombat and NBA JAM, my two favorite games ever. I still need to download NHL 94 which is one of my favorite sports games also.

Using thepiratebay.org I was able to find around 30 PSP games which I managed to download. A 512MB memorystick would be enough to run most of them but if you are planning to install more then 1 game on a memory stick it would be a lot better to get a 1GB stick. Some games like Collin McRae take up 975MB of space which won’t even fit on a 512MB stick.

So if you have a PSP and want to downgrade and install emulators and downloaded games, here are some links to help you out.

Downgrading from 2.0 to 1.5 Guide
PSP Version Changer (WAB)
PSP Emulators
PSP Torrents
I have 1.5 now what?

French Connection, the fashion retailer, is scaling back the use of its controversial Fcuk slogan after a slump in sales. The acronym for French Connection United Kingdom has been splashed across the company’s clothing and advertising campaigns since its creation in 1997. But with sales down 10 per cent in the first half of 2005, the company has decided that the brand has tired and will be taken off its clothing and billboards. [More]

I think fcuk was cool when it first came out but I have to agree that I think it has been abused and is just lame now. When fcuk became popular the word fuck was still a bad word, now though you could have fuck on your tshirt and no one would look twice.

I haven’t reviewed a microwavable dish in a while but here is a good one. There is a local company called Livestock Transport & Trading Co. that have a line of frozen ready made meals that sell under the brand Jahez. Jahez have 24 different frozen meals in total but todays review is about the Chicken Masala meal.

Cooking the meal was very easy. You take out the tray from the box, punch a few holes in the plastic cover and then stick it in the microwave for 6 minutes. I have my own way of cooking the meals though. I place the tray in the microwave and let it cook for 3 minutes, then I open the microwave, take out the tray and peal open the plastic cover. Then using a fork I move all the food around and when I am done I close the cover again and shove it back into the microwave for another 4 minutes. I do this so that the food thoroughly cooks. I have had issues before with microwavable food where when eating, the food ends up being really hot in the center of the dish but cold nearer the outer edge.

Once the meal was done I took it out of the microwave and opened the plastic cover again. The smell was really appetizing and visually the dish looked very eatable. I took the tray and sat down in front of the TV and started eating. The Chicken Masala tasted pretty good, somewhere between a home cooked meal and the Mughal Mahal fast food restaurant. I finished the chicken and then took the sauce and poured it over the rice and continued eating. It was a pretty satisfying dinner and overall I think this might be one of the best frozen meals I have ever had. The best part of the meal is the price. Since its made in Kuwait its pretty cheap coming in at around 700fils depending where you buy it from. The Co-ops usually have a larger collection of Jahez meals and cheaper prices then Sultan so you can find it for as low as 670fils in some places. Great price plus good food gives this meal a 4 out of 5 rating in my book. For more information on Jahez click here. Also make sure you read some of our other reviews located here.

A friend of mine sent me this, its pretty funny but I still prefer the Dawam video. [Video 364KB]

The iPod Nano problems seem to have hit the main stream media. Today Gizmodo, Engadget and iLounge reported on the issue. It will be interesting to see Apple reaction to all this. [Link]

The past week I have been having serious issues with Spam on this blog. For some reason my previous spam checker Hashcash was letting some spam through and I was getting at least 30 comments a day via email awaiting my approval that were all spam. So I decided to try a different Spam plugin called Spam Karma. Right away it detected the recent spams and adds them to the blacklist. So far I haven’t received any new Spams but the day is still young. Hopefully though I won’t be having any more spam issues.

I first saw the spy shots back in July and now the official images are out. My opinon still stands, I hate the front but love the ass. The inside is pretty decent, good to see American car makers finally paying more attention on improving the interiors. [Link]

Seems the videogame industry is pretty pumped up about Nintendo’s Revolution controller. Now I can’t wait till 2006. [Link]

Yesterday I added a spammer to the blacklist and it seemed to have blocked everyone and anyone from posting a comment on the blog. I emptied the blocklist now and everything is back to normal. Sorry about that.